Innovative setting bracket design to improve the tractor Fit and Finish between the Bonnet and Custer panel (Scuttle)
The paper presents an integrated approach for arriving a process to assemble scuttle regarding bonnet to achieve Gap and flushness aesthetic requirement. Variation is inevitable due to fitting of bonnet on Tractor front semi-chassis, scuttle fitting on tractor middle clutch housing and assembling many parts with different tolerances, hence the deviation (stack-up) obtained after their assembly varies from approximately -10.175 to 9.775 mm. This is quite large and gives a huge impact in aesthetic point of view.
To overcome this issue, we introduced one Innovative intermediate bracket as the setting gauge which is assembled with reference to bonnet and scuttle is mounted on this setting bracket hence zero flushness and uniform achieved between bonnet and scuttle.
This mechanism also decreases assembly tag time (which plays a vital role in mass production) as well as helps in identifying process failures in assembly. This in turn reduces cost as well as reduces assembly operator pain area.
Apart from these aspects tolerance between them vary from design to design but it is usually kept at around 6mm (to provide a smooth motion). In present work, a gauging technique is suggested for minimizing the variance in tolerance. Utilization of metrology system also results in decreasing investment cost and provide high accuracy.